Last Wednesday, the 1st May, I went on BBC Radio Four's "Today" programme to debate with Charles Moore, Editor of The Daily Telegraph, over his "Free Country" campaign. I was surprised that Mr Moore had agreed to debate with me. I am fairly well-known as a scathing critic of his newspaper and of his honesty and ability as an editor. But the time of the debate approached, and no cancellation message came through. Two possible explanations ran through my mind. First, Mr Moore really was the scrupulously fair and tolerant sort of person he wanted to appear to others, and he had no grudge against me for all the damning things I had said about him and his friends over the years. Second, I was less famous than I thought, and Mr Moore had never heard of me. It is obvious which explanation I preferred. Whichever might be so, however, I went off to the BBC relishing the prospect of a public argument.

A Morning in the Ministry of Truth

I had not at all expected what did happen. I knew that Mr Moore would not be able to sit with me in the same studio, but would make his contribution by telephone from home. I was now told that he would not be available at the time set for the broadcast, and so the debate would need to be recorded. Even then, the debate was nearly cancelled. Mr Moore's telephone was left off the hook, and no one at the BBC knew any other numbers for him. Eventually, though, contact was made. We were approaching the time originally set for the live debate. Would the debate now be live? I asked. No, I was told - it would still be recorded, but now broadcast much later than planned.

Never mind, I thought. At least we were going ahead. The debate started, and I gave Mr Moore five minutes of polite denunciation. I left the studio feeling pleased with myself. I had made some good points, and in front of a large audience.

It was only when people began to telephone me that I realised something was wrong. Why had I been so soft with the man? a friend asked me. Why had I not made what seemed an obvious point? Why had I allowed him to walk all over me? Why had I bothered sending out an e-mail advertising the debate when I so plainly had no interest in winning it?

Confused, I went to the BBC web page that carries the most recent broadcast of any radio programme. There, I discovered what had happened. Though everything by Mr Moore had been kept, over three quarters of what I had said was gone from the broadcast. What remained was a moan about the European Union that, taken out of context, had an emphasis different from what I had intended, and that was joined to a very smooth answer from Mr Moore.

No wonder people were disappointed. After the digital editing of my words, I sounded about as relevant as one of the drunks who call into the late night discussion programmes.

I cannot be bothered to complain. The function of the Media complaints bodies set up in this country is to give an impression of fairness that does not exist. Going through the motions of complaining, to show up how fraudulent the system is, can be useful, but I cannot be bothered even with that. Instead, I will try to be more careful in future. I was too excited by the thought of a radio debate with Mr Moore to pay attention to any attendant circumstances. Next time, I will ask for guarantees of equal time after any editing. Failing that, I will walk out. For the moment, the harm has been done. I had my chance to put my objections to Mr Moore, and the editing of what I said made me seem to have let the chance slip through my fingers. The best I can do in the circumstances is to write down what I said or wanted to say, and give it to the Internet. Here, then, is the contribution that I wish I had been able to make.

The "Free Country" Campaign

The Daily Telegraph "Free Country" campaign began last summer with a claim by Mr Moore that freedom was no longer valued in this country. He did not come out as any kind of orthodox libertarian, demanding the legalisation of guns and drugs, and the shutting down of most government. Instead, he made the milder case that the authorities should accept a presumption in favour of freedom —that while it might be necessary to restrict certain freedoms in the public interest, all such restrictions must be proved beyond reasonable doubt and subject to a continuing right of appeal. The presumption we actually have is in the other direction. New laws come out of Westminster with almost no thought of their effect on our traditional liberties—and increasingly without any scrutiny.

The stated purpose of the "Free Country" campaign is to remind politicians and the public that freedom is important. The campaign opposes illiberal new laws, and calls for the repeal of many of those already made.

Of course, I am glad that The Daily Telegraph has started to talk about freedom. Nor am I concerned that it is not running a radical libertarian campaign. There are many paths to freedom, and there are many stopping points along these paths. There is legitimate room for debate over the nature and extent of the freedoms we should possess; and I would never reject a campaign that did not go as far as I want. My objections to the Telegraph campaign fall under two headings.

A Velvet Fist in a Velvet Glove

First, the campaign lacks focus. It consists, so far as I can see, of short and unconnected moans about specific invasions. The overall effect is disappointing. Whatever may be said in a single article, it is unlikely to shift overall perceptions. Compare what The Daily Telegraph is doing with the campaign run by The Guardian against the Act of Settlement, or for any of its positive causes. Compare it with the daily campaign run by The Independent in favour of British entry to the Euro—where every apparently favourable statistic or news story is pressed into service. The leading articles in favour are like the visible parts of an iceberg—the critical mass that makes it worth attending to is elsewhere. I hope these newspaper campaigns fail, but I cannot fault the technical manner in which they are run. Compared with them, what the Telegraph is doing seems amateurish and faint-hearted.

In particular, no effort has been made to relate most present threats to freedom to their European Union origin. There are plans - active or in waiting—to abolish trial by jury, the lay magistracy, habeas corpus, and the rule against double jeopardy (this latter endorsed, it is worth saying, by The Daily Telegraph and Conservative Party). These would bring about much of the legal harmonisation demanded by the European Union. Yet they are never discussed in the light of the Corpus Juris proposals. Indeed, these proposals have never been properly discussed in The Daily Telegraph . The best discussions I can find are in the letters archive—the features and opinion archive is silent. Nor does the Telegraph spend time complaining about Europol, which is a European police agency established in this country, the officers of which have diplomatic immunity. Some "Free Country" campaign! It is as if The Guardian were to run its campaign against the Act of Settlement while not allowing any of its writers to set out a general case against the Monarchy.

Alliances—What Alliances?

Second, for all his talk about "building alliances" across the political spectrum, Mr Moore shows no interest in giving publicity to other pro-freedom campaigns. It is notorious that The Daily Telegraph has given no coverage worth the name to the Freedom Association, the Democracy Movement, or the Libertarian Alliance. The Democracy Movement is a mass movement that, about 18 months ago, filled Trafalgar Square to listen to speeches against the Euro delivered by the unlikely combination of John Redwood and the Editor of The Morning Star. No coverage in The Daily Telegraph. It did lift a Democracy Movement news story about pro-Euro propaganda in schools—and ran it without attribution. For years, it similarly ran material from the Freedom Association—again without attribution. It sometimes used to publish letters from the Director of the Freedom Association—but never once gave in to pleas for an address to be published so interested readers might know where to contact.

As for the Libertarian Alliance—though I might be thought biassed here—this is an obviously important organisation. It is the most radical free market and civil liberties policy institute in this country. Now that it is more closely allied with the Libertarian International, it has a pan-European reach. Over the past 25 years, it has published over 700 pamphlets and shorter articles about freedom—by leading academics and by leading activists of all shades of opinion: from Enoch Powell and Tony Benn, to Peter Tatchell and an East European prime minister (while still in office). Other newspapers regularly mention our work. A few months ago, The Guardian published a long feature article about incest that was based largely on a Libertarian Alliance pamphlet—and gave full credit. Other newspapers even sometimes publish articles by the main players in the Libertarian Alliance—for example, Dr Chris R. Tame, Brian Micklethwait, and me. The State-controlled BBC has a Libertarian Alliance speaker somewhere on its network at least once a week. Channel Four researchers seem to use us as a point of first call for all manner of projects. Only the Telegraph ignores us. It never uses our news releases. It never invites any of us to address its occasional conferences. The last time it gave any coverage to us was the Easter Monday of 2001, when it fabricated a story in which it called me a terrorist!

I will emphasise—I am not blaming Mr Moore because he does not turn over his campaign to us. Not am I questioning his right to cover or not cover anything that takes his fancy—though not to cover something may compromise his claim to edit a newspaper of record. But we are an undeniably important player in the debate on freedom in this country; and to go out of his way not to mention us at all indicates that his campaign has a different agenda from the one stated.

The Quisling Right Revisited

What is this agenda? I cannot say for sure, because I do not know any of the people running his campaign. But I suspect it has much to do with taking over the debate on freedom and then containing it by marginalising all those interested in winning it. With issue after issue, the Telegraph newspapers and Conservative Party have a clear record over the past few generations. Whether it has been the fight against socialism, or against the European superstate, or now with the fight against creeping authoritarianism, the pattern has been the same—take over the leadership, and do just enough to let the casual observer think that something is being done—but never do enough to produce victory.

I have written about this in my pieces on the Quisling Right [Free Life Commentary, issues 50, 52, et passim], and will not repeat myself. But in this "Free Country" campaign, all the usual signs are there of fraud and betrayal. Look at the list of speakers at the Telegraph's "Free Country" conference of last week (the 1st May 2002). There was Oliver Letwin, whose pro-freedom noises as shadow Home Secretary seem more connected with political correctness than with any recognisably liberal ideology. There was Boris Johnson, a journalistic buffoon, who has made The Spectator into an unreadable comic, and who betrayed his Eurosceptic constituents last summer by endorsing Kenneth Clarke for the Conservative leadership—and even before, I think, he had managed to take his parliamentary oath. There was John Wadham, whose leadership of the National Campaign for Civil Liberties has given neither Jack Straw nor David Blunkett a single half hour of embarrassment. With one or two minor exceptions, the speakers were either non-libertarians of any shade or well-connected mediocrities. If we are to rely on these for the defence of our birthright of freedom, we might as well choose now between emigration and the implanted identity chips that are already being tried on cats and dogs.

I do not know if Mr Moore procured the editing of our debate last Wednesday. Probably he did not. But considering the nature of his campaign, it would not at all surprise me if he had.